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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Thought crimes',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/03/03.jpg" alt="Some snow remains at the church" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		I got my registrations for next term sent in.
		These two courses complete what I&apos;d planned out already as far as what courses to take each term, so it&apos;s time to plan the terms after that.
		I&apos;d planned to take boring business courses using all my electives for admittedly stupid reasons, but it looks like only one business course is available to computer science majors, and it&apos;s that first business course that I already took that one term when the school messed up my schedule and it was the only course I was allowed to take at all.
	</p>
	<p>
		My discussion posts for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
			Subdirectories like that are way different than subdomains.
			The concept of subdomains is in no way a silly standard.
			Subdirectories exist on the same server, while subdomains can exist on potentially different servers.
			Basically, subdomains are individually assigned $a[IP] addresses.
			It&apos;s a very useful tool for giving a proper address to each of your servers without needing to buy a domain for each server.
			Also, you know that common <code>www.</code> prefix?
			That&apos;s a subdomain.
			<code>www.example.com</code> and <code>mail.example.com</code> are subdomains of <code>example.com</code>.
			Additionally, <code>example.com</code> is a subdomain of <code>com</code>.
			The root name servers can&apos;t handle the load of storing all the names people would register, so domain registration is delegated.
			This shows another aspect of subdomains, which is that their $a[DNS]-handling can be delegated.
		</p>
		<p>
			I&apos;m also <strong>*really*</strong> opposed to just getting rid of $a[DNS] altogether.
			Like you said, you can&apos;t pick a meaningful name that way.
			You gave an example of hashing the name into something memorable, but those hashes clearly have nothing to do with the sites they represent, making them bizarre for users.
			But also, when you change hosts, you would lose your address.
			With domain names, you can keep your address when you move, so you don&apos;t lose your repeat visitors.
			Also, with domain names, you can host multiple websites at the same $a[IP] address.
			Without domain names, you&apos;d need to have unique $a[IP] address for each website, which would not only be costly, but would eat up way too many addresses in the $a[IP] address space.
			Even with $a[IPv6], we&apos;d likely run out of addresses quickly.
		</p>
		<p>
			It&apos;s just a matter of being able to read subdomains.
			It&apos;s like reading a directory path, but backwards, and with dots instead of slashes.
			It&apos;s <code>/sub0/sub1/sub2</code>, versus <code>sub2.sub1.sud0.</code>.
			In fact, all domain names actually end in a full stop, but most people leave it off.
			So <code>example.com</code> is actually <code>example.com.</code>.
			<a href="https://y.st./en/URI_research/SNI_bug.xhtml">Unfortunately, most Web browsers have a bug that prevents them from sending proper requests if you end a domain in a full stop, but the $a[RFC]s are very clear that it&apos;s supposed to be allowed.</a>
		</p>
		<p>
			As for the Secure Electronic Transaction protocol, I haven&apos;t seen it in use.
			That doesn&apos;t mean it&apos;s not, but I can&apos;t be sure that it is.
			This was the first I&apos;d ever heard of it.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Thank you!
			I try to keep my grammar decent.
			I do intentionally break certain punctuation rules that I disagree with, but I&apos;m totally in agreement with you that it&apos;s no fun to read things when their grammar (or punctuation) is too far off.
		</p>
		<p>
			Thanks for the information on the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council.
			I wonder if it&apos;s normal to have one body to look to for information on laws in a given field.
			That would be nice.
			You&apos;d just need to figure out which standards council to look to for whatever laws you need to keep up on.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			I agree that you shouldn&apos;t hold passwords in plain text, but that phrasing implies you should encrypt them.
			Encrypted passwords are a problem too, as the encryption key might get <del>stolen</del> <ins>copied</ins> along with the passwords.
			Like you said in a previous section though, hashing&apos;s the way to go.
			Even hashing can be an issue due to rainbow tables, though using rainbow tables is a pain for crackers unless popular passwords are used or the cracker has a huge rainbow table.
			Salting the hashes can go a long way in disrupting rainbow tables.
		</p>
		<p>
			I&apos;d be careful as far as blocking purchases based on purchaser location.
			Like you said, the key is whether they <strong>*usually*</strong> shop from a specific country.
			With governments and $a[ISP]s constantly spying on everyone, some of us try to preserve some of our privacy, making $a[IP] addresses and $a[IP] address global locations a bad way to determine whether we&apos;re who we say we are.
			Some people use a $a[VPN] in another country.
			They&apos;ll always look like they&apos;re shopping from the same country, but that country won&apos;t match their billing address.
			Some of us take it a step further too, and use something such as $a[Tor].
			My $a[IP] address changes every ten minutes and I appear to jump all over the globe.
			If someone were to block my purchases based on that, they&apos;d lose my business needlessly, and I&apos;d shop elsewhere.
		</p>
		<p>
			One time, I tried to use a new credit card for the first time ever, and the bank blocked it.
			It turns out the card had a country lock on it by default, and the bank (not the merchant) would reject all purchases made from outside the country.
			It was an easy enough issue to fix though, and the card works just fine now.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="religion">
	<h2>Religion</h2>
	<p>
		Today was another chance for people of the congregation to come up and bear their testimonies.
		I guess this happens every month or something?
		The missionaries asked how my reading was going and what parts I liked so far.
		I ended up asking them about whether the Book of Mormon had ever been rearranged, as the chapter numbers and verse numbers don&apos;t line up in my digital copy, compared to the paperback copy they gave me.
		It turns out the book&apos;s never been reordered, but it was split into different chapters at one point.
		I knew the original version had no chapters and verses, and was one monolithic text, so it makes sense that there&apos;d be no holy indications as to where chapters were supposed to begin and end.
		So it seems that as long as I make sure of where my place is before I leave home, so I compare the verses and find exactly what verse I&apos;m on beforehand, I can read at work like I&apos;d tried to do before.
		But that has to be done at home where I can look at both versions of the book at once, to make sure I&apos;m where I think I am and don&apos;t skip anything.
	</p>
	<p>
		I don&apos;t think I wrote about this person last week, but the missionaries said they were crazy, and that while they love him for his enthusiasm, his ideas don&apos;t make sense.
		So when I write about what they said, know that it shouldn&apos;t be taken to reflect the ideas of the church.
		I&apos;m only writing about it because of how hilarious it was.
		Anyway, they started talking about viruses.
		This began by discussing how many people in the United States have died because of $a[HIV] (or as they called it, the &quot;$a[AIDS] virus&quot;), then pointing out that that figure excluded both people in other countries, as well as people suffering because of the virus but not yet dead.
		I thought they were going to discuss what Yahweh&apos;s doing to help these people, but no.
		The discussion took a surprising turn.
		They discussed how when you view a virus under a really good microscope, you can see it&apos;s shell.
		According to them, viruses made by Yahweh have a smooth, teardrop-shaped shell.
		Viruses manufactured by humankind instead have a complex shell, which they likened to the skin of a lizard.
		They said humankind can&apos;t replicate the shell design of Yahweh&apos;s viruses.
		And because $a[HIV] has a complex shell, they claim mankind manufactured $a[HIV].
		They asked who could have done this, in a tone that implied they were going to tell us, but they didn&apos;t.
		After that bizarre story, they made a couple other, shorter claims.
		First, we mustn&apos;t buy or sell poppy-based goods.
		No explanation for why was provided.
		Second, pills are idols, and Yahweh hates idols.
		Thus, you should reject medication.
		Um, what?
		You don&apos;t warship or pray to pills, you eat them (or stick them up your butt).
		They&apos;re no more idols than, say, an apple.
		I guess this person might be off their medication though, and maybe this is why.
	</p>
	<p>
		The other congregation members that chose to speak weren&apos;t much more sane though, honestly.
		Some made baseless claims that the contents of the Book of Mormon is true, providing no evidence, whatsoever.
		Not even circumstantial or otherwise invalid evidence.
		They didn&apos;t provide any justification whatsoever.
		I guess when you&apos;re a believer telling other believers, you don&apos;t need to give evidence, because you&apos;re not trying to convince anyone of anything.
		But at the same time, you&apos;re not conveying any new information, either.
		What&apos;s the point of you saying anything?
		Some tried to explain happenstance as being the guiding hand of Yahweh.
		One tried to explain a medical recovery they&apos;d had as being caused by a blessing endowed on them by members of the priesthood.
		My best guess is that this was just more coincidence, but it could have also been the placebo effect.
		One person tried to justify the suffering in our lives, claiming that we shouldn&apos;t suffer for ourselves, but suffer for the sake of Yahweh, because that&apos;s what he wants, and by doing so, we could be happy during those terrible moments instead of suffering.
		That&apos;s got a bit to unpack.
		First, if you&apos;re happy instead of suffering, then you&apos;re not suffering for anyone.
		If Yahweh wants you to suffer for him and you&apos;re instead happy, you&apos;re not doing what he wants.
		Second, the Mormons paint Yahweh as a caring and loving god.
		Why would he want you to suffer for him?
		Then again, the holy books do paint him as rather evil, not kindly or caring.
		One person tried to pass of human empathy as the Holy Spirit.
		Um, no.
		We&apos;re plenty capable of caring about others of our own kind, and even others that aren&apos;t our kind (y&apos;know, when people try to help non-human animals), without the help of a magical, imaginary ghost.
		And if we weren&apos;t capable of empathy on our own, we really wouldn&apos;t be worth saving, would we?
	</p>
	<p>
		This week&apos;s Sunday school lesson was about how to be a better person, but part of that included thought crimes.
		It&apos;s a sin to think and feel certain things, even if you don&apos;t act on them.
		Seriously?
		That&apos;s what they&apos;re going with?
		I brought up that we can&apos;t choose our thoughts, only our actions, and they insisted that we <strong>*can*</strong> control our thoughts.
		I brought up that avoiding such thoughts would literally require us to think before we think, which makes no sense.
		They pack-peddled a bit, saying it&apos;s not a sin for the thought to initially come into our heads, as long as we immediately reject it and push it out.
		That&apos;s not what the bible says though, as I&apos;ll cover in my <a href="/en/religion/scripture/bible.xhtml">Notes on the bible</a> when I get to reading that.
		But anyway, they said that without bad thoughts popping into our heads, we&apos;d never be able to sin, so we need bad thoughts just so we can choose to reject them.
		You don&apos;t hurt someone with your thoughts though, only your actions.
		Thoughts should never be considered a crime, and no just and fair god would penalise you for your thoughts.
	</p>
	<p>
		One thing we did cover in that regard that could be helpful is that you can train your mind to automatically reject certain thoughts.
		You can&apos;t think nothing, but you can replace the bad thoughts with good thoughts.
		Replace the same type of bad thought with the same type of good thought enough times, and your brain will start doing it automatically.
		My idea of a bad thought and the church&apos;s idea of a bad thought are radically different, but there are thoughts I wish would go away, such as when proprietary songs pop into my head.
		I usually just let them run, because they&apos;re not hurting anyone as long as I don&apos;t promote the songs, but I&apos;m going to try switching the tune to Brad Sucks&apos; Making Me Nervous every time or something.
		That should be a fun experiment.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="work">
	<h2>Work</h2>
	<p>
		Yup.
		As I predicted, I was back on the drive-through today.
		Joy.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
